ST. PETER, MN – We’re about halfway through the month of March, which means that Gusties up and down the Hill are starting to feel the heat from their spring classes. To that end, those same Gusties have been looking for a way to relieve some of that stress through everyone’s favorite pastime: alcohol. With Saint Patrick’s Day this weekend, many Gusties enjoyed their Friday nights at Patrick’s, complete with green beer, green shirts, and verbally assaulting the poor Gus Bus drivers. However, for a small group of about 500 Gusties, we went to bed knowing we’d do it all again the next day.

When we all woke up at 12:15 PM with a massive hangover, some of us wondered if we were ever going to make it all the way to 3 Flags from our doubles in Complex. We had to be on the buses to travel to the 2023 President’s Ball in four hours, but our choices from the previous night made the long journey seem impossible. But by the grace of God, we all managed it. Some of us threw back a Pedialyte, some of us threw up our festive colored beer, but we all made it to the bus on time and looking incredibly stylish.

When our field reporter arrived, she was immediately greeted by a red carpet with the longest line she’d ever seen up to that point, complete with girls in slip dresses regretting their life choices due to the cold weather, and boys in Polo shirts and khaki pants who clearly did not understand the dress code. But she made it through the line, and got a black wristband signifying she could drink alcohol by presenting her fake driver’s license to a security guard at the venue.

Once inside, she sat down at a table by the photo booth, hoping none of her friends would see her and she could enjoy the night to herself. This proved to be a mistake, however, as the seven people that ended up sitting next to her were complete strangers, and among them was a couple that was definitely failing the hand check. The speeches from the CAB member and Garrett did not serve as much of a distraction, and unfortunately neither did dinner. An AI trained to look and sound like President Bergman gave a speech, but eagle-eyed viewers were able to notice the lack of humanity due to how few times it blinked. It opened the speech by giving a land acknowledgement, leading “#BasedBecky” to trend worldwide all throughout the rest of Friday night and into Saturday morning.

Shortly after dinner, a band emerged from behind the black curtains and the dance floor slowly came to life, although it remained on life support for much of the evening. Wanting to get away from both the awkward dancing and the couple at her dinner table seemingly unable to remove their lips from each other’s, our reporter went upstairs to enjoy some cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, and surprisingly, origami. After that much-needed time to recharge her social battery, our reporter headed back downstairs to try out the “cash bar” that clearly could take cards. She happily wasted $7 of company money by ordering a Bud Light seltzer, as the bar was out of orange juice after the scores of Gusties before her had placed orders for screwdrivers and tequila sunrises. The dance floor finally sprung to life just in time for her to smash the seltzer and join in on the fun for the very last song, Mr. Brightside.

Theme: 7/10

A Night on the Red Carpet was a good choice for a theme, and Garrett even remarked in his speech that it looked like the Oscars. However, CAB could have committed to the theme further by having someone to come up and slap him à la Will Smith.

Dinner: 4/10

You can’t go wrong with chicken and mashed potatoes, but dinner at our reporter’s table was ruined by someone she could only hope was a first-year putting ranch on their red velvet cake.

Music: 8/10

There were plenty of songs that the band absolutely nailed, but our reporter found the male singer’s referral to the audience as “delicious” slightly off-putting.

Overall: 9/10

CAB put on a hell of a show for their second President’s Ball back from COVID. Live music is always appreciated here at The Fourth Crown, and although we couldn’t vibe to every song they played, we could still vibe to a lot of them. And for the low price of twenty-seven dollars, our reporter got a lot: a bus ride, a slice of cake, dinner, snacks, COVID, and most importantly… alcohol.

See you next year.